Part 2.3 - - Snape's First Year - Headmaster - - 1997-98

- - - / / / - - -

25 December 1997

The single package appeared at the foot of his bed on Christmas morning. Wrapped in green tissue. No card to indicate the sender.

Not that it needed a card. Only one person would have given him a Christmas gift of an academic journal from the 1960s: Magical Politics Quarterly, which opened automatically to an article called "Blood Hegemony and Resistance in the Grindelwald Era."

Of course, there was always the possibility that it wasn't a gift at all, but a warning.

6 April 1998

Snape stared out of his sitting room window, trying vainly to compose his thoughts. Not even the Prince book had been able to calm him once he'd seen the hasty, encrypted message brought to him by Lucius's emergency owl just an hour ago.

"Potter captured by Snatchers last night; brought to Manor," it read. "Master summoned but by indescribable bad luck, Potter and friends managed to escape, dungeon prisoners too. Wormtail dead. Dark Lord's wrath terrible to behold, punishments severe but survivable. DL's whereabouts now unknown."

In the course of his life and reading, Snape had sometimes come across phrases such as "wrath terrible to behold." They'd always seemed vaguely ludicrous, overwrought: the sort of biblical excess he associated with the religious fanatics of his childhood (a group had once come to preach on the corner opposite his father's local, at least until the landlord and a couple of his beefier patrons had chased them off sharpish).

But then in his arrogance and stupidity, he'd made himself lackey to a power-mad psychopath, and soon the notion of "wrath terrible to behold" was no longer a melodramatic cliché. It was simply a realistic description.

This setback with Potter was bound to destabilize things even further; the end could not be far off now. He should - -

Without warning, his dark mark flared hotly, the burn stronger than any he'd felt before. Snape staggered, catching himself on the desk, knocking his Prince book to the floor as a vivid image of the castle gates flooded his mind.

"Severussss. . ." came the whisper from everywhere and nowhere. "Meet me here at once."

Snape wheeled, heading toward the circular stone staircase as quickly as he could. Well, at least the question of Voldemort's whereabouts was settled for now. And it would be suicide to keep him waiting.

- - - / / / - - -

Twenty minutes later, Snape was back in the headmaster's office, standing before Dumbledore's portrait.

"Albus," he said, and the painted old man "woke" at once. "The Dark Lord is in the grounds. He did not say what he wants."

Dumbledore nodded, as usual not seeming the least surprised. "I expected this sooner or later," he said. "He will open the tomb, take my wand. Let him. Do not attempt to interfere."

Snape snorted. As if he would even consider it - - though he had no doubt that Albus would order him to make the attempt if he thought it necessary.

"The Dark Lord will meet me here in the office later," Snape added. He did not bother asking why Voldemort wanted Dumbledore's wand; if Dumbledore had wanted him to know, he would have explained.

"Ah," Albus said, closing his eyes. "Then I will be sure to be 'asleep.'"

Snape settled in to wait, but it seemed a very short time before inky smoke began to seep around the frames of the office windows, and Voldemort took form in the middle of the room.

"So, Severussss," the Dark Lord said. "You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling failure of your compatriots at Malfoy Manor yesterday?"

As wary as he was, Snape couldn't help but remember an old entry he'd read recently in his Prince book, where, as far back as his first year, Minerva had voiced her mistrust of his "Slytherin compatriots." Plus ça change. . .

"Yes, I have heard, my lord," he replied. There was no point in denying it.

"They had Potter in their power, and they let him go." Voldemort narrowed his already-slitted eyes. "You would not have let him go, Severus."

Ah, here lay a trap. Best be as neutral as possible.

"I hope not, my lord."

"And yet," went on Voldemort, his soft voice taking on just the hint of an edge, "since the day last summer when we attacked Potter in Little Whinging, you yourself have done nothing to assist in his capture."

Snape knew better than to appear to offer excuses or justifications. Better to focus on practicalities. "There are plans in place," he began.

"Plans!" Voldemort shrieked, abandoning all pretense of control. Several portraits opened their eyes in shock, but Dumbledore "slept" on. "I have had enough of 'plans'! You have plans, Lucius has plans, Yaxley has plans, Bellatrix has plans. . .and nothing comes of them but the continued liberty of Potter! He was your student, you know him, you know how he thinks! Why have you not found him? You have all the many powers of Hogwarts castle at your disposal, and yet you do nothing. Nothing!"

The first Cruciatus curse did not exactly take Snape unawares, but he had long since learnt that there was little one could do prepare oneself.

After the second curse, he was no longer thinking in complete sentences.

After the third, he was no longer thinking at all.

- - - / / / - - -

Snape came to himself on what seemed to be a soft cushion with some sort back to it. A sofa, perhaps? There were quiet sounds of movement around him.

"How did you know he was ill?" asked a voice. Poppy Pomfrey, he thought.

"Gibby fetched me. The headmaster's elf. I expect Albus sent him." Minerva.

Well, well.

"Why you?" Poppy was saying. "Here, measure twenty-five millilitres of this solution while I chop the roots. And then pour it into the other potion, please. It has to be freshly combined to be effective."

Minerva's voice was wry. "Why me? Just another of the many entertaining duties of the deputy headmistress. 'Assist the headmaster after the Cruciatus curse as necessary.'"

Poppy huffed half a laugh. "Let me get this potion down his throat while it's still smoking," she said, "though seriously, part of me hopes he chokes."

"Ah, Poppy, remember your healer's oath. Besides, better the devil we know."

A vile concoction was forced past his lips, and Snape at once felt somewhat better. He kept his eyes closed, though; Dumbledore was not the only one who could find it useful to feign sleep.

"But who cruciated him?" Poppy asked. "Not that many people wouldn't be glad to. . .but who at the school would risk it, even if they were willing to use an Unforgivable?"

"I expect we'll find out - - if Severus chooses to tell us, that is. Or else we won't."

"There," said Poppy, and Snape felt the tingle of a charm pass over him. "He should be all right now; we've headed off any permanent neurological damage."

There were the sounds of her packing up her medical kit. "Best we leave him here rather than move him to the hospital wing. The elves can let us know if anything goes wrong."

"Yes," said Minerva. "Thank you, Poppy. I'll see you at breakfast."

Footsteps, then the door closing.

And then a hand on his shoulder.

"Severus." Minerva shook him gently, then harder. "Severus?"

She sighed in exasperation, such a quintessential, familiar Minerva sound that Snape could almost imagine they were back in the staff room, arguing about Quidditch.

"You're not fooling me, Severus Snape," she said, and then raised her voice to address the room at large. "No more are you, Albus. Nor any of you portraits. Sleeping, my arse."

Then her heels clicked briskly away, and she was gone.

1 May 1998

Albus's portrait hailed Snape the moment he stepped into the office.

"Severus. Portraits from the Ministry have brought news: Harry and his friends have raided Gringott's; they are out in the open now. I think we know what this means."

"Yes," Snape said simply.

It meant that the final battle was probably only hours away. And Snape had work to do.

- - - / / / - - -

Darkness was falling before he had the opportunity to take up the Princes' book for what would probably be the last time.

Throughout the whole of this hellish year, he had resisted the temptation to confide in this book the way he had done as a child, spelling out his feelings and his fears. There was too much at stake, too much to lose, and in any case, he knew too much of the world, now, to be willing to trust even a "protective" sentient artefact.

Yet now, with his death very likely in sight, he risked loss of a different kind, and he finally made up his mind: he would take a chance on forestalling it.

The real ending, after the final battle, would be up to others, not to him. And up to the book.

But at least he could set the wheels in motion.

Taking up a quill, Snape opened to the magical message page and began to write.

- - - / / / - - -

And now, dear readers, you are the "others" that Snape imagines above.

You must decide how his gamble ends.

You get to choose your own ending: the "bitter" or the "sweet"

(or both, if you prefer).

Coming soon.